The eventual ratification of the federal prohibition amendment by the Illinois legislature in January, 1919, ended one battle in a much broader and longer cultural struggle between the state's old-stock, traditionally Protestant population and its new-stock, largely non-Protestant citizens.

By 1910, 53 percent of the state's people were either born abroad or were second-generation Americans, mostly of Irish, German, Scandinavian., or Eastern European origin - groups unknown in Illinois when it became a state in 1818. Differences in customs and religion between "old" and "new" Illinoisans were profound, as illustrated by the clash over the use of alcoholic beverages. The older natives viewed them as a source of evil that threatened the American system, while the newer immigrants found them critical to important segments of their culture.

Among the groups in the state which felt threatened by the growing influence of the new arrivals and which demanded various degrees of Americanization were the Anti-Saloon League, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and the Protestant churches. Thus, immigrants and natives split on the issue of Sunday drinking, the latter arguing that imbibing on the Sabbath encouraged socialism and anarchism.

Associating the increase of crime with the new immigrants, the drys maintained that prohibition would reduce crime, increase savings deposits, and break the hold of saloonkeepers over the immigrant vote.

Finally, the natives believed prohibition would halt the decline of the Anglo-Saxon race in America and provide a means of control over the "racial impurity" they saw entering the state with the new population.

In each instance, new-stock Illinoisans opposed the arguments for prohibition, the most effective lobby being the United Societies composed of ethnic minority groups founded by Anton Cermak, leader of Chicago's Czechoslovakian element and a future mayor of the city. Also advocating personal temperance rather than prohibition were the Roman Catholic, Jewish, and Lutheran churches.

In determining individual positions, ethnic and religious factors overshadowed both residency in Chicago or downstate and political affiliation, as Democratic legislators from Chicago voted dry if they were Protestant and downstate Republican legislators voted wet if they were Catholic on a whole series of pre-amendment prohibition measures.

The modem political struggle for prohibition in Illinois began in 1907 when the Rev. Clay Daumer of Danville introduced an abortive constitutional amendment providing for statewide prohibition. While the amendment was defeated, the wets were forced to accept a township-option bill which remained in effect until the federal amendment was passed. Following this came a bevy of dry-sponsored laws outlawing drinking on Sunday; on trains; near state universities; at old folk's homes, soldiers' and sailors' homes, and naval training stations - all aimed at drying up the state a piece at a time.

The two most important legislative votes, however, came on a proposal for statewide prohibition in 1917 and on the federal amendment two years later. The legislature split along the religious and ethnic lines which had divided the state for years. Statewide prohibition passed the Senate 31 to 18 but failed in the House 67 to 80.

An analysis of the vote shows that in the seven Chicago districts whose senators and representatives voted unanimously "no," the legislators represented ethnic or minority groups, while those districts which voted unanimously "yes" had legislators who represented old-stock Protestant constituents. The same was true downstate in 1917 as well as on the vote on the federal amendment in 1919. That vote differed in the House, and passed only because the drys picked up a few votes in Southern Illinois in the intervening election.

Clearly, the prohibition struggle in the state was one between competing cultures: the old-stock, Protestant, traditionally American, and the new-stock, non-Protestant, and still heavily European. To each, prohibition symbolized the protection of a way of life. Additional battles in that struggle would occur in the 1920s with the rise of the Ku Klux Klan; the restriction of immigration; and the role of the Democrat, Catholic, urban, wet Al Smith in the Democratic Convention in 1924 and in the election of 1928.

When the struggle was over, an Illinoisan of markedly different definition, habits, and culture would emerge from the one considered typical in the mid- 19th century.